With the release of Disney’s THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS just days away on November 2, I briefly spoke with Academy Award-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan and got a few hints of what to expect with the breathtaking fantasies she has created for the film. And what perfect timing given the new “Four Realms Fashion Featurette” which you can watch above.
A new take on the beloved tale of “The Nutcracker”, in FOUR REALMS we are transported into the Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets, and then the ominous Fourth Realm which is ruled by the tyrant, Mother Ginger, giving Beavan lots of room to dream and play. In FOUR REALMS, we meet our heroine Clara who is looking for a key that will unlock a box which holds a priceless gift. A golden thread presented to her at her godfather Drosselmeyer’s annual holiday party leads her to the coveted key which, along with Clara, then disappears into a fantastical and mysterious parallel world. It is there that Clara meets a soldier named Phillip, a gang of mice, and the regents who preside over three of the Realms.
Fresh off “Christopher Robin”, Beavan once again has some “reality” to work with “because you’re set in a world of the 18th sort of 17th late Victorian” but then, our heroine Clara “goes into this parallel universe which is the joy of all time for a costume designer. Can you imagine?!”
Beavan is quick to admit that “the joy of my job generally is that every project is so different and I have to really sort of change gear and think up totally new things, which is what I like doing best.” Creating the specific fantasy costumes for FOUR REALMS “was done a lot from memorizing dreams of when you go into a dream or another world. There’s often something that you remember from what you’ve seen in the day that you’ll carry through to your dream. I thought that was particularly with the Realms, but it was more to do with the ornaments in the mother’s cabinet that would inform what these people looked like.”
Given the number of costumes and multiples of each required for THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS and the intricacy and delicacy of each, Beavan credits her “incredible team” who, “once they got the idea went off with it with boundless enthusiasm and occasionally had to be brought back to reality!” And of course, what’s a fantasy without glitter. “We all lived with glitter. . . The whole thing was covered in glitter and we glittered happily for months!”
In theatres November 2, 2018
Disney’s THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALS is directed by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston and inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale. The film stars Mackenzie Foy as Clara, Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer, and Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger, along with Eugenio Derbez, Jayden Flowora-Knight, and Misty Copeland as the Ballerina Princess.
http://Facebook.com/DisneysNutcracker
